Nightfall
by the silence in between
Summary: Long ago, the queen forgot how to love; the nuances of compassion and intimacy were lost to her. Tonight all started as a game, but now, finally, she thinks that she's starting to remember. Evil Queen/Woodcutter. Warning: mild violence, sex.


**Disclaimer** — _Once Upon a Time_ is owned by ABC and Kitsis/Horowitz. I make no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the publication of this story.

**Author's Note** — This story was written for the _Once Upon a Time_ anonymous kink meme on LiveJournal. The prompt was for the evil queen and the woodcutter (Hansel and Gretel's father), with a focus on the queen trying to feel something other than loneliness. Don't worry, there's still sex involved.

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><p>A month after she sets him free with nary a clue as to his children's whereabouts, she finds him forlornly wandering the forest at dusk. With a swirl of dark smoke, she materializes before him, a broad smile adorning her dark red lips. "Oh, my," the queen sneers, taking in his dirty, tearstained face. "All this time, and you still haven't found your precious <em>family<em>?"

The woodcutter's eyes narrow with rage. He reaches to his side for his axe, but the queen is quicker; his weapon goes hurtling through the forest as vines erupt from the ground, coiling around his limbs and pinning him upright to a towering ash tree. Once he finds his bonds to be unbreakable, the woodcutter resigns himself to glaring hatefully at his captor.

"Now, now," the queen chastises, stepping carefully over a particularly large root in her high-heeled boots as she makes her way to his side. "Remember, woodcutter, that I am your sovereign, and that the sole punishment for treason is a swift death. Although," she concedes, tracing one long fingernail down his cheek, "it is adorable that you thought that you could defeat me so easily."

"You _coward_!" the woodcutter shouts, his face flushed with anger. "Put away those spells that you so love to hide behind, and we'll see who emerges victorious. King Leopold was ten times the ruler—"

The queen seizes his throat, cleanly silencing his words. The smirk has long since faded from her face, which is now contorted with hatred. "Don't you _dare_ speak to me of my husband. If you knew only half of what your beloved king..." Emotion builds in her chest, and the queen allows her sentence to trail off, fearing that she will lose control if she does not. She releases the woodcutter, who desperately gasps for air, and takes a deep breath through her nose. "You're wrong on all accounts; King Leopold was no hero, and you will quickly find that I am no coward."

"Oh, really?" the woodcutter coughs. "Then why do your guards whisper of how you are too afraid to descend into the dungeons?"

All of the air is knocked from the queen's chest so violently that she feels as if she has been physically struck. Panic rises behind her ribs, wrapping its tendrils around her lungs, just as it does every time she so much as looks at the door leading to the castle's maze of cells. Even now, all these years later, the smell of straw still makes her ill. How could she ever find the words to explain the dread that filled the pit of her stomach each night as she watched the sky grow lighter outside her tiny, barred window, signaling the waning time left in her too-short life? And how dare this insignificant, meaningless peasant demand such a thing from her?

Her composure regained, the queen places one hand on the bark above the woodcutter's head for balance and the other, claw-like, against his chest. "My, you do have a death wish, don't you?" she murmurs venomously. "Tell me, dear woodcutter, were you king, would you divert precious time from tending to your kingdom's woes in order to seek out your prisoners? Or would you, as a busy man, order them brought to you at your convenience?"

"Tell me, your majesty," he begins bravely, though he eyes the hand on his chest nervously, "if you are so busy, then why are you here tormenting me? Is your heart so full of evil and hatred that there is no one left willing to occupy your time now that your family is all either dead or in hiding?"

The queen's eyes widen in shock; she can feel her magic pulsing in her fingertips, feeding off the white-hot fury coursing through her body. Her nails dig into his chest through the thin fabric of his shirt, and she leans in closer. "Are you volunteering to occupy my time, then?" she spits out. Before he has a chance to answer, she kisses him, pressing her lips to his so hard that they will both be bruised by the morning. To her surprise, his mouth falls willingly open, allowing her tongue inside to ruthlessly explore. He tastes sweet, she thinks briefly. Like fresh berries.

After a moment, she pulls away, and a wicked smile blooms across her face at the sight of the dazed look in his eyes. "Well, isn't that interesting," she purrs. Her own chest still heaves as she lowers her fingers to the front of his pants and strokes him until he comes alive in her hand. "It seems that your heart's desires are just as dark as my own. I wonder, do sweet little Hansel and Gretel know the truth about their beloved father?"

The woodcutter glowers resentfully at her for a few moments before his head lunges forward, capturing her lips with his own. With a moan that she never meant to utter, the queen waves her hand, allowing the vines binding the woodcutter's body to the tree to recede into the earth. Rationally, she knows that it's a foolish move; this kiss could be a ploy to escape, or to launch an attack against her. There's something about the woodcutter's kiss, though, that makes her feel _wanted_, and the queen cannot remember how long it has been since she was last with a man who actually wanted to be with her. The intensity of the sensation makes her feel dizzy and warm all over.

His restraints gone, they both tumble to the ground. The queen lands on top; she straddles the woodcutter's hips and leans over him in order to continue their kiss. His hands, meanwhile, work frantically at the buttons on her bodice, tugging impatiently until her bare breasts fall into his work-roughened hands. He rubs a callused thumb against her taut nipple, eliciting a low hiss from the queen that pierces through the quiet twilight. Emboldened, the woodcutter leans forward to take her areola into his mouth, but the queen's firm hand against his chest stops him.

"Don't," she whispers, her voice breaking slightly. There's only been one person that she's ever allowed to touch her like that, and he's gone now, cold in his tiny grave, and she just... _can't_. Below, the woodcutter watches her quizzically, waiting for her next move. She's let this charade go on for too long now, she knows, but she can see the desire in his eyes, feel the evidence of it pressed hard against her thigh, and she can't stop now; she's too far gone. With a quick flick of her fingers, their clothing disappears. The queen still says nothing, just positions herself above him and then slowly sinks down his length.

To the queen's utter mortification, she feels tears prick the corners of her eyes as his flesh fills her own. It's been so long since she's been this close to another person, without games or spells or fear between them. There's a kind of naked honesty, of sincerity in the way that the woodcutter's hips rise to meet her own, in the way that his hands cling to her hips as if she were his anchor. This cold, dead void that takes up the spot where her heart should be has threatened for years to consume her whole, but when she leans back and rolls her hips, like _that_, she almost feels whole again.

In mid thrust, she's struck by the sudden memory of herself when she was barely a woman, when her heart had been so full of love that she had feared that it would burst. Not too long after that, the queen forgot how to love; the nuances of compassion and intimacy were lost to her. Tonight all started as a game, as an opportunity to remind the woodcutter of her victory, but now, finally, she thinks that she's starting to remember.

Beneath her body, the woodcutter's movements grow more erratic; his every breath comes out as a moan, but he keeps his eyes open and focused on hers. Her own climax is not far off, and when the woodcutter slides his hand between their legs and strokes the most sensitive part of her, the sound that resonates from her throat is almost a cry. The queen falls forward to kiss him, and as she does her hair comes loose from its extravagant bun, cascading in waves down her back. Everything about her is coming apart.

She lasts one, two, three more thrusts, and then everything dissolves around her in a haze as her whole body comes alive. Exhausted, she collapses against the woodcutter's soft chest. She feels his warm arms wrap around her like a blanket and his hand tangle itself into her long, thick hair. With her eyes closed and his heart thumping hard and fast against her flushed cheek, she can almost trick herself into believing that she's gone back in time, that she's _happy_ again...

The queen's dark eyelids fly open in horror; she quickly pushes herself off of his body and stumbles frantically around the small glade in search of her clothing. She finds her robe and pants strewn behind a rotting log, and as she pulls the tight leather over her dirt-caked knees, she mentally berates herself for her recklessness. The woodcutter is but a peasant — one who has brazenly defied her at that — and she just had sex with him on the forest floor, where any passerby could see them together. Her cheeks burning with shame and self-loathing, the queen quickly fastens the remaining buttons on her bodice and brushes the soil from the black skirt of her robe. All that she wants in this moment is to be fully clothed, to hide what the woodcutter has uncovered and restore the rightful balance of power between them.

The fruitless search for her socks ceases as panic grips her once more. With horror, she thinks of all of the memories that her time with the woodcutter had dragged to the surface, all of the pain and hurt and loneliness that he'd brought back to her mind. He could _know_, she realizes with a quiet gasp. She's let him too close, let him see the scars covering her heart, and if he tells anyone else...

The queen forces her bare, dirty feet into her boots and finally looks back at the woodcutter, her fingers spread and curved in anticipation of what she must do. To her surprise, though, the woodcutter has already dressed and is now walking off into the encroaching darkness.

"_Where_ do you think you're going?" the queen barks. To her own ears, her voice sounds off, somehow.

The woodcutter stops and looks back at her, his face devoid of emotion. "My children are still missing."

"You fool." The queen stalks over to his side, her black robe billowing out behind her like the night. "Don't you realize that you're _never_ going to find them? You can search to the ends of the earth, from the depths of the ocean to the crest of the clouds, but they'll always be just beyond your reach. They'll forget all about you and move on with their lives while you cling to the pathetic notion that _love_ makes you invulnerable to tragedy."

Tears brim unchecked in the woodcutter's eyes. "They're my children," he whispers, his voice as thin as a thread. "I have to try."

His words strike a chord somewhere in the queen's cold, evil heart, and she feels the sudden urge to cry. When she does not respond to him, the woodcutter gives a slight nod before turning, ready to voyage on into the night.

"Wait." It takes the queen a moment to realize that she actually spoke the word aloud. Wearily, the woodcutter turns back to her. "They're that way," she finally murmurs, pointing west, where the last of the day's light peaks over the distant, obscured horizon.

For the first time in her presence, the woodcutter's lips curve upward in a smile. "Thank you, your majesty," he breathes. With a grunt, he hikes his knapsack over his shoulder and takes off toward the sunset.

The queen stays behind, watching until the woodcutter disappears, hidden by the forest's density. Once he's out of sight, her legs give way; she sinks slowly down into the dirt and leaves. With one last glance toward the ebbing light, the queen wonders, not for the first time, when she became the villain of this story.


End file.
